February 26, 2012

How to Find Novels Set in a City, State, Country or Era

Wish you were somewhere else as the February winds blow? You can find a list of well-known novels set in a city, state, country or English county by Googling “Wikipedia” + “Category:Novels Set in” + “Name of place.” Google “Wikipedia” + “Category:Novels Set in” + “Paris,” for example, and you will see the titles of classics such as A Tale of Two Cities and The Hunchback of Notre Dame and popular fiction such as Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance and Maigret and Monsieur Charles. You can use the same technique to find novels set in decades, centuries or historical eras. Google “Wikipedia” + “Category:Novels Set in” + “Name of era” (“the Middle Ages,” “the 1920s,” “the Roaring Twenties”) for titles and links.

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Thanks, Amy. Many critics and bloggers have posted good lists of books about places that have more passion or detail than the Wikipedia “Category” pages. But those personal lists usually cover only the reviewers’ favorite cities, states or countries.

The great thing about the Wikipedia “Category:Novels Set in” pages is that you can look up almost any well-known spot and find a list of books about it and links to more information about them. These have helped me as a critic, and I appreciate your letting me know that they might help you, too.

For a visual way to search for books, check out http://novelsonlocation.com/. You can browse or search a Google map pinned with settings from novels all over the world. If you log in with your Facebook account, you can see what your friends added.